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Reader Tom Hudson, and now several others, have submitted the news that Osama Bin Laden is reportedly dead, and that his body is in the hands of the US military. A statement from President Obama is expected shortly. Watch this space for more details. Update: 05/02 04:01 GMT by T: More coverage at ABC News, at CNN, and at Al Jazeera. The reports say that Bin Laden was actually killed about a week ago by a bomb in Pakistan, and the time taken to confirm his identity via DNA testing helped delay the news. In downtown Austin, Texas, in the time since the story broke I've heard what sound like numerous celebratory gunshots.

While Osama has been hard to track down, lower echolon leaders have been killed left and right. Didn't change a thing. Partly because the US managed to always find a way to kill a lot of civilians (by accident they claim) to fuel new hatred.

Thinking the death of Bin Laden will change anything is like thinking the death of Roosevelt in 1945 meant the end of WW2. (For those lacking in history, it didn't).

The world has changed massively after 9/11 but it also has continued to change. Take the current unrest in North Africa and the middle east. Ghaddafi (however you spell it) went from terrorist leader to friend to target in less then a decade. Now there are calls from the left to watch the bombings in Libya but ALSO to interfere in Syria... wtf? I am sure Israel is wondering just what the hell is going to happen next. Do you think it is an accident Hamas is changing its tune now its allies are burning from within?

If anything this shows how silly the idea of control is in the world. Bin Laden became a symbol but had little control. He achieved next to nothing. The uprising against the oppressors in muslim nations is instead against both religious AND secular leaders (Syria is secular, its Iranian ally is strongly religious) and the uprisings are both religious and secular. About the only prediction that stands is that nobody predicted any of this.

What will happen now Bin Laden is death? A symbol is dead but the things that made him a symbol are not. There is severe dissatisfaction in the world and people seem more ready then ever to use violence to made their dissatisfaction known. You might hail this is a fight for freedom or extremists wanting to force their view on the rest of the world, but the fact remains that right now more struggles are happening then in a long time in history.

A leader of a decade ago is dead, few will mourn him but he is a relic. There are new struggles to overcome. Iraq is still a mess, Afghanistan is a war zone. Pakistan is on the verge of collapse. North Korea is facing collapse and won't go queitly, Libya is in civil war. Syria is about to erupt in war. The list goes on and on. Wikileaks Assange has disappeared of the radar of news but that is still far from finished.

No, I don't think we can breath a sigh of relieve just yet.

And that in a way is a good thing. The world has NEVER been a safe place. Better we are aware of it not being safe and work to make it safe even if we make mistakes then to live in false security.

Thinking the death of Bin Laden will change anything is like thinking the death of Roosevelt in 1945 meant the end of WW2. (For those lacking in history, it didn't).

There is a book in my parents' bookshelves with title "Assassinations that were supposed to change the world". Thick book with chapters about (successful or not) attempts to kill important people. From Franz Ferdinand, through Che Guevara, to Hitler, Rasputin, Lincoln, JFK, Ghandi and many others. Attempts to kill the snake by cutting off the head. It never worked.

I hope that book was not saying that the death of Franz Ferdinand didn't change the world. From what I can tell, it was pretty much the most pivotal single act of the entire 20th Century, if you realize that it directly started WWI, and through the loss of WWI turned Germany into a state bent on revenge and world domination and allowed the Communists to take over in Russia.

Of course, I don't think the assassin actually meant for things to go down that way, which might be the point of the book, but sometimes killing one person can have a huge effect. Not to mention he did manage to indirectly topple the Hapsburgs, even if they pretty much did that to themselves by overreacting and trying to get a little Serbian soil out of it.

As for Osama, the very manner of his death could have a larger meaning that we cannot predict. History does have a number of examples where killing a leader does end the movement. While considered very, very unlikely, this *could* be the end of al-Queda due to an unforeseeable chain reaction.

However, the facts are that being a martyrdom-based group, all leaders of these terrorist groups will likely be expected to die eventually, even if the leaders really had no intentions of seeking out martyrdom. That means that the rank and file terrorists should be able to fit the death into their world-view and not crumble because they lost their leader.

The real question is how much they relied on his reputation for being elusive and uncatchable to maintain high morale, and what his role in operating the group was. If he was more directly in charge of operations, this could cause at least a partial disorganization, even if a decapitation did not happen. If he was more like the Queen of England, a figurehead, then al-Queda will probably maintain full capabilities and now just be really pissed off.

>> However, how do you prove that you have killed a "fighter" or a "civilian?" They both wear the same clothes.

If you kill someone, then review their body, and find that they were not wearing a uniform, nor were they carrying any weapons, nor were they strapped with explosives, nor were there any weapons nearby, nor is their likelihood that they were directing others to engage in warfare, then they were a civilian.

These rules are pretty clearly spelled out in some treaties we've signed and ratified. Certainly some of the people claimed as civilians were not, but in some cases they most certainly were.

>> I would strongly suspect that suicide bombers have killed far more civilians than the US military has.

I doubt it, given the 200+ year history of the US military and relatively short history of suicide bombers, even taking into account 9/11.

>> # of civilians killed as a result of US military actions

There's no web source that cannot be dismissed by you or others as "biased", therefore there is no possible source to give you definitive proof. My short web search started here, which is where I would start reading if I was so inclined:http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ [iraqbodycount.org]

Who precisely are we supposed to declare war on? You declare wars on countries. Even when it was running Afghanistan, the Taliban wasn't even running the whole country and it had almost no recognition anywhere.

Declarations of war are courtesies between nation-states who maintain diplomatic relations and who actually attempt to negotiate with one another in good faith. For terrorist groups, you either ask the country that they are sheltering in to get them, or you ask permission to get them yourselves, if they can't pull it off. If there is no government, you just go and get them.

The OP point is still valid. These guys don't wear uniforms. If there was a government that could handle actual law enforcement, we probably would ask Afghan law enforcement to arrest them and turn them over. As it stands, the very idea of that is currently a bad joke and will be until we secure the country and the Afghans figure out how to not be corrupt and borderline useless in running their own country.

Killing civilians is a terrible thing, but the reason that they are dying is the one of the reasons that terrorists are so awful, even to their own people. Uniforms are worn so that the enemy knows who is fighting them, and who is not. If they did wear uniforms, and acted in an manner that followed various conventions and laws of war, they would probably be treated better when captured, and fewer of their own civilians would be killed.

Of course saying that the killed civilians are "their" civilians isn't even true. The terrorists don't care about anyone outside their own group. Their neighbors are just human meat shields for them. If those same meat shields were not ignorant of the Taliban or al Queda's true nature, they probably wouldn't have the sympathy for the terrorist groups that they do. In the end, there are probably more people alive today, despite the collateral damage, than there would be if people like the Taliban were allowed to keep running their own little patch of Hell. Neighbors are much more efficient at killing civilians than any military. Just look at some of the places we haven't launched Hellfire missiles in, like Sudan or Rwanda.

I think being attacked would in fact make recruiting easier. It's quite easy to demonize people who are killing your friends and relatives and fellow countrymen all around you. Why wouldn't these people hate the U.S. and want to fight back?

The difference is that drugs are big business. Wherever there's a fortune to be made, there will always be plenty of willing participants. But when you're looking at living in fear of drone strikes, with your leaders dying ever few months, recruiting gets harder.

If the Israeli experience of the last few decades hasn't shown you how ass-backwards this kind of thinking is, I don't think there's anything that will get it through your skull....

If we heard that a United States General had been captured, crucified, and fed to rats, would that soothe the average American or aggravate him? Would he be more or less likely to support violent retribution or volunteer to fight?

Trumpeting a triumph in victory against our foes is all well and good, but purposeful desecration of the body? We're better than that. A slap in the face against deeply conditioned religious beliefs? I would hope we're smarter than that.

Shame they didn't get him alive and give him a trial. Ironically life imprisonment would have been a far harsher punishment for him, denying him martyrdom and potentially preventing his death from becoming a unifying cause that enlists more naive youngsters into team evil.

No they need Obama Skull fucking his dead corpse. That would send a message.

Yeah, because if people in the USA saw some Al Qaida member skull fucking the corpse of someone in our military (or even a political leader), we'd get the message that they are bad-asses and concede the war and back down immediately.

Actually, the Taliban kill far more civilians than NATO. While you might not have noticed this fast the Afghans certainly have. Some of the tribes (aided by NATO) actively repel the Taliban. Doesn't make good sound bites so the Western News mostly ignores the fact that most of northern Afghanistan is actually ok (by its low standards).

The big problem is not that we won't win the "War on Terror" (and it is important for "us" in the West to win it). The big problem is that we are losing the "War on Corruption", not just petty corruption but the subtle subjugation of the legislative process. This is what is causing revolutions in the Middle East (sick of corruption) and one of the original motivators of Osama Bin Laden. Unfortunately US internal interests (multi-national corps) undermine the laws of sovereign states (eg witness ACTA and the 3-strikes laws popping up etc) is what will create a new wave of disaffected terrorists far more than the bombs. I hope that the US gets its act together with its excessively meddlesome foreign policy (some is understandable - its a linked world after all) and reigns in the corps instead of being a puppet to their tune - but I fear this hope will never come to fruition.

According to the following article and United Nations report (linked below) the Taliban were responsible for 76% of civilian deaths in Afghanistan in 2009. NATO were responsible for 12% (although the media likes to pump it up as if NATO are the bad dudes). That's a ratio of 13:2, plus the Taliban will kill indiscriminately, take hostages as human shields (they consider 'involuntary matyrdom' of civilians as acceptable), and seize villagers as 'wives'. NATO generally tries to avoid killing civilians, unless they are within a compound there are armed Taliban in (likely to be wives and children of Taliban members than can't be separated from the gunmen). Then there is the classic Afghan trick of claiming 'casualties' in a village when in fact a goat has been killed (they get financial compensation from NATO for villagers killed, but not for goats - apparently this is a scam that the Afghans are all to happy to use on foreigners).

I remember a few years ago, when everyone said we had to attack the Iraqis because they were terrorists.

Really. Everyone. I seem to remember some "man on the street" interviews that were used to mock the idea. That's as close to "everyone" as I ever saw. It's like claiming that everyone believes that Obama was born in Kenya.

We had to attack the Afghanis because of terrorism, and of course we had to forget that most 9/11 hijackers were Saudis.

We attack the Taliban because they provided safe harbor and support for Al Qaeda. Whether that is a smart strategy / worthwhile is certainly up to debate. But if you're going to make a complaint about the overall lack of geopolitical knowledge of "most Americans", it might help not expressing ignorance in the process.

Fighting terrorism now means having a TSA agent fondle you or getting photographed naked.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could undo some of THAT damage with this event.

The reality was that the president wanted personal revenge because he blamed Saddam for Daddy losing out on a second term. And Cheney/Rove (who actually ran the country) allowed it because they knew they would be able to funnel not just hundreds of billions, but multiple trillions to their friends and supporters. There was no other reason why the US should invent some coalition and make up reasons to invade. For that, Bush and Cheney should face one murder charge for every dead person. But no, the Republicans talk like they support responsibility, unless it was they who were responsible.

Because Saddam was a viscously successful survivor. The US didn't roll in and oust Saddam during the Gulf War because they didn't want to get involved in the power vacuum that would follow. And they certainly didn't want to provide a wedge for Iran to get involved. So they parked with the intent that Iraq would take care of its own problem. The problem is that Saddam uncovered coups and plots, killing any attempts to do so. When the Shias rose up (likely thinking the US would help), the spectre of Iranian influence reared its ugly head and the US didn't act to protect the uprising - which was put down brutally. Meanwhile, Saddam used his Oil-for-food money to rebuild military and construct palaces. While Iraq suffered, Saddam certainly didn't. So if the US wanted regime change, it was going to have to force it. But by the time that realization came about, we couldn't even make a strike on Bin Laden without "wag the dog" theories. So the Administration took advantage of a bad time in history to bring about the New World Order.

Now - was there WMDs? Its not far fetched to believe there were. The US had sold Iraq the basic chemicals needed to manufacture chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War. There was a fledging nuclear program. And inspections were not done to the extent that they had been agreed to - certainly not to the extent that the US and former Soviets conducted against each other under various nuclear non-proliferation treaties.

The problem with this is that these were not the talking points of the Administration. They told the public that they had definitive proof. And that proof turned out to be bunk. It doesn't take much cynicism to look at that as not simply mistakes or selective cognition but outright lies.

Of course, this is largely my own take on the situation. I'm also not a Democrat. I'm not a republican. I also wish 3rd parties could be relevant. But none of this has anything to do with the belief the statement "everyone said we had to attack the Iraqis because they were terrorists" which I find to be selective memory with strong political spin.

Now - was there WMDs? Its not far fetched to believe there were. The US had sold Iraq the basic chemicals needed to manufacture chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War. There was a fledging nuclear program. And inspections were not done to the extent that they had been agreed to - certainly not to the extent that the US and former Soviets conducted against each other under various nuclear non-proliferation treaties.

Saddam purposefully lied in order to make it look like he had a bigger program that he did. Of course, all investigations revealed that his statements were false. They were made to make him appear strong and help prevent an invasion or uprising. And, of course, he didn't give carte blanche to the investigators because if he did, his own followers would have thought him weak, opening up a chance for a coup. Again, his actions were predictable for a paranoid dictator (was he paranoid? Everyone was really out to get him...).

All his WMD programs were aimed to keep up the appearance of strength, and nothing more. And they were all verified to the ability of the UN, CIA, MI6, FSB, etc. to be that and nothing more. There was no operational WMD in the country when we invaded, and all the WMDs he ever used were given by the US. And the worst part was that everyone knew (or suspected) that was the case. But those in the points of power in the US purposefully chose to believe the known lies and ignore the truths, as long as it supported their goals of invasion. The decision to invade was made before 9/11. They were just looking for excuses and "got lucky" with 9/11.

The reality was that the president wanted personal revenge because he blamed Saddam for Daddy losing out on a second term...

Uh, no, Ross Perot was to blame for that.:-) The Gulf War was popular and considered well executed. It was the economy that did Bush Sr in, not anything to do with the war. The revenge against Saddam angle would hypothetically be for the attempt to assassinate Bush Sr when he visited the middle east after his presidency.

The true reality of the situation was that Saddam tried to hide the fact that he no longer possessed WMD. He wanted others, in particular Iran, to think he may still have them. Saddam feared appearing weak. He admitted this under US interrogation. And no there was no water boarding, it was the effective type of interrogation - long term contact, establish a relationship, use psychology, etc. National Geographic had a pretty interesting documentary about Saddam's interrogation.

long after most Americans have forgotten why we went to war in the first place.

Pretty funny that you should talk about "forgetting", because then you say:

And of course we had to forget that most 9/11 hijackers were Saudis

Well you seem to have forgotten is that they were mostly Saudis - trained in Afghanistan, by Al Quidea.

Since that was where AQ was based, where the terrorists were trained, that was in fact the single best place to start in striking back and reducing the threat. I mean, here you seem to imply we should have attacked Saudi Arabia, even though there government there did not condone the terrorism. For a long time after we invaded Iraq there were cries in fact that we should ONLY be in Afghanistan. But you seem to have forgotten that too.

You seem to have forgotten we are not fighting the people of Afghanistan but AQ who has people based there, just as in Iraq for a time we were not fighting many Iraqis any more, but instead a coalition of AQ fighters from all over - including Syria and Saudi Arabia again.

Indeed your message about not forgetting is an important one, which is why I felt it necessary to provide historical fact over re-written sentiment.

Fighting terrorism now means having a TSA agent fondle you or getting photographed naked.

I hate the new rules too and think they are silly.

But to be fair, AQ has shown a fetish long after 9/11 of trying to work terrorism through planes, and so that is where the focus has been on protection. It's a matter of finding what is reasonable and what actually works, something I think they are a long way from yet. It's the right focus but totally the wrong technique.

Al Qaida did not move into Iraq. Very, very few fighters from Al Qaida or the Taliban operating in Afghanistan or Pakistan made it to Iraq to fight, since they already had infidels to fight. Abu Musab al-Zaraqi renamed his group "Al Qaida in Iraq" and had direct correspondence with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, but they quickly split due to ideological differences. Long story short, there is no current connection between the two groups "Al Qaida" and "Al Qaida in Iraq", and there hasn't been since 2006 at the latest. Be careful which term you use.

Chances are that you would be prosecuted for sexual harassment if you did such a thing.

Only in America could a sexual harassment complaint begin:

so i was feeling his sack when he started making unwanted sexual advances. I told him, "hey buddy, let's keep it strictly professional. I don't know what kind of crazy stuff you're into, but I just want to stick my finger up your ass and go home. It's been a long day"

"If Obama preempts the end of The Apprentice to announce they've killed Bin Laden that is going to be the most epic ownage ever." - Comment on Fark.

I'm studying for finals right now (after taking a 4 year break between MS and BS). I was a freshmen in college when 9/11 hit. Every single other person in this was building was 8-10. Most don't even remember the 1st attack on the WTC. My college had 4xT1s providing 6Mb. My cable connection is faster. ALL of my news came from Slashdot and Fark. Both were barely struggling to survive. Yahoo, MSNBC, CNN all went down. Fark had to roll over to new threads every 300 or so posts (300 posts is considered low these days).

There was no reddit, digg, facebook or twitter. SMS was just a very expensive feature that no one used.

The biggest casualty will probably be our Constitution. Whenever a tragedy likes this occurs, the government always announces a get tough on terrorists policy that will have no effect on the psychopaths who do this, but will severely limit our rights.

Yep. I give it a week before Bush announces a "war on terrorism". And we all know what "war on XXX" means, don't we? Bye-bye Bill of Rights.

Yep. Let's put face recognition cameras in all airports and log activity of anyone who enters or leaves an airport. We all know it wouldn't stop the attack, but hey, it will help us correlate who boarded the planes with their respective political associations.

You don't get it. If the Constitution is a casualty, then the terrorists have won. Their aim is to destroy this country. The Constitution IS this country. It's the only thing that makes us different from any other country in the world.

Mr. bin Laden was killed at a mansion outside the Pakistani capital Islamabad, CNN reported. A senior U.S. counterterrorism official told Associated Press Mr. bin Laden was killed in a ground operation in Pakistan, not by a Predator drone. A senior Pakistani intelligence official confirmed that he was killed in Pakistan.

One wonders if he was moving around pretty frequently, and this just happened to be where they caught up with him, or if a mansion outside the capital is actually a good-enough hiding spot. If the latter, he must have had the same sort of 'deep roots in the community' that have historically allowed organized crime leaders to live more or less openly for long periods of time...

MSNBC just reported that the mansion was several times larger than any other building in the town, surrounded by a 15 foot wall topped with barbed wire, with a double gate, and no telephone wires connecting it to the outside. If that doesn't scream "hide out", nothing does. I'm thinking there were a lot of locals who knew and didn't care. Their loss I guess, they missed out on that million dollar reward.

As a local living in that area, who would you call to report his location and collect your reward? Do you call the police, and hope whoever you talk to is not corrupt?

I know I'd be keen to collect on the reward, but I don't like being dead either...so I don't really know how I personally would have gone about doing it. Presumably you have to be identifiable at the time that you call in the tip, and that's the catch. (Well, maybe I can think of ways *I* would have gone about it, but the situation would likely be very different for most locals in Pakistan).

Interesting, so the US has ground troops in Pakistan, too? Shall we assume that they have both permission of the Pakistani government and the constitutional blessing of the US Congress for being at war in a FOURTH country...

Why, yes, as a matter of fact they do. And I'm glad to see that you are clear that they are fighting against the same enemy in Pakistan, not against Pakistan.

SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.--- Authorization for Use of Military Force [findlaw.com]

Abbottabad is about 50 km north of Islamabad, and 150 km east of Peshawar. It's also the location for a number of major military establishments. Which, of course, raises a whole lot of very interesting questions about the Pakistani government's knowledge of, and possible complicity in, his holing up there.

My last day of work at the World Trade Center was September 10, 2001. I remember turning around, looking at a lone guitarist playing near that fountain with the Globe sculpture, it was a beautiful Monday night, around 9 pm. I had worked late, so I was going to show up late to work on Tuesday. I woke up to my phone ringing off the hook. I lost my job, but compared to what others lost, I lost nothing.

The people who died that day were liberal and conservative, but all were American. Bin Laden hated us all, just because we were American. So please, no political games here. This isn't about left and right, this is about a cowardly attack on all of us, as Americans. As a hardcore liberal, I embrace my fellow Americans who are conservative on this good news for us all.

Come together, as Americans, left and right, lose the useless political snark and sniping, and celebrate this asshole's death. Good fucking riddance.

The people who died that day were liberal and conservative, but all were American. Bin Laden hated us all, just because we were American.

It's more than that. Al Qaeda has killed Muslims, Iraqis, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Spaniards.....people from all over the world. He was a hater. This is something every sane person in the world can be happy for.

Al Queda was not just at war with the west but with many Muslim nations as well. But it is NOT Al Queda (no matter what fox says) that is behind the overthrowing of the corrupt dictatorships in the middle east. Those uprisings have the potential to change the world far more then 9/11 ever did AND for the better. All 9/11 brought the Muslim world was Iraq and Afghanistan on fire and a spreading hatred of Muslims (imagine ten years ago it being MAINSTREAM policy in Europe to close the borders to immigrants AND have headscarf bans in effect or going through legislation in a lot of countries).

But in less then a year, peaceful protests mercilessly cut down by Muslims leaders have resulted in more change then we have seen in a long time and it is far from over. If Syria errupts (so far there seems to be no sign of armed resistance despite some soldiers having defected) then the turmoil is complete. Saudia Arabia and Iran are far from save then (Saudia has send troops to support an allied dictator in an other region, tying itself to the fate of said dictator, Iran uses Syria as a puppet to support Hamas in its push to destroy Israel).

This is changing the world. Without Syria, Iran stands very much alone, Hamas would lose its support (why do you think they have changed their tune so fast recently). Saudia Arabia might face some though questioning of not outright revolt... the middle east might never be the same. Of course, it could also turn very very bad (if you believe fox) but lets hope not shall we (so far Egypt is stable and shows no sign of sliding into a muslim extremist nation despite what fox claimed).

I think it is very significant that all of this happened without Al Queda at all. Bloody attacks, no change. Peaceful uprisings, the world may never be the same.

Bin Laden is dead, the path of Martin Luther King jr and Gandhi seem to get the best results. Who would have thought.

I find it very strange to cheer about somebody's death, but here I am.

It's pretty rare to find undiluted evil in the world, but he sure was it. I was in 5th grade at the time, in northeast NJ. We could see the towers from the top of the slide, and then just two pillars of smoke. Even though I was only 11, I knew damn sure what was going on and what it all meant.

And I'm damn glad he's dead. His organization continues, of course, but he wasn't exactly a figurehead either. I'm not going to speculate on the ramifications of this, because they're happening now and in the next few hours and days.

I am a Muslim, and I'm so happy they finally nailed this creep.He's killed thousands of Americans, including many Muslims in my community who worked in lower Manhattan. 9/11 even destroyed the local mosque at the Towers.

Bin Laden was never a Muslim leader, back in the 1990s Muslim leaders spoke out against him and called for his capture, after his involvement in bombing of US embassies. Even his "spiritual leader" told the press that Bin Laden is not qualified to speak for Islam and he had no training to make rulings or give fatwas.

God's gonna judge him, and I hope He gives Bin Laden what he deserves, for the misery he's put Muslims worldwide through, and for disgracing Islam and the millions of peaceful patriotic law-abiding American Muslims.

Ok, here's the problem. Let's say that there actually was a successful raid which led to the killing of bin Laden.

First, the body was buried at sea, according to the US military, which means there's no proof he's actually dead. In other words, he's going to turn into the Elvis of Islamic terrorism. Either there is a conspiracy, and he's not dead, or conspiracy theorists will claim that he's still alive somewhere. We live in a world where (some) people believe that the President of the United States forged his own birth certificate with the collusion of the state of Hawaii; you think a 19-year-old terrorist recruit in Whatthefuckistan is gonna just take the word of the United States government that the leader of Al Qaeda was buried at sea?

Second, I guarantee that within two days a new bin Laden tape will be released. The guy had less value as a strategist than he did as a symbol, and I'll bet that there are pre-recorded tapes yet unreleased, and that there will be audio tapes with a "voice purported to be Osama bin Laden". Probably talking up Ayman al-Zawahiri as the operational leader of AQ.

Third, while there is potent symbolism for the West in killing bin Laden, keep in mind that he headed an organization which advocated suicide bombing as a tactic. Bin Laden's death is going to make him a martyr in the world of radical Islamic terror. While there may not be a single figure that can replace him right now, there are plenty of other affiliated groups, with plenty of other members, and a successful attack can be planned and carried out by an uncharismatic moron just as easily. For that matter, an unsuccessful attack can have a significant impact, too. Ask Richard Reed.

Fourth, to the West, this looks like the USA is still the baddest motherfucker around, and we always get our man. To people who live in Pakistan, the Middle East, and other, non-Western places, this looks like the only superpower in the world spent ten years and billions of dollars to kill one guy who pissed it off, in a campaign culminating in the use of clandestine intelligence and spec ops, in someone else's country. How's that for international diplomacy?

I'm not saying I'm sad the guy's dead, because I'm not. I think it's great. I just wish he'd gotten hit by a truck, or ate some bad dates or something. I have a strong feeling that this is not going to make our lives any easier.

Actually, that whole woosy feeling that I got after 9/11 for several years, not unlike getting kicked in the beanbag, has almost gone away. Bringing it back up is kinda like the bully saying "There is that dweeb that I kicked in the balls a few years ago. Ha ha".

I'll take the other side and say it goes into an entry as "closure". There were only 2-3 "signature issues" for this whole War on Terror campaign - Saddam/Iraq and Bin Laden. BL was left hanging out there as deep unresolved tension driving this whole ugly crusade by.gov.

Now it's a democrat in office, with a year left in his term, and wherever you place the mission ops credit, he has put away the defining Republican meme of the decade.

So now cynicism says ".mil will keep its toys", but without the "But Bin Laden is out there" headline, the sound bites aren't nearly as good. "Be vigiliant". "Against who?" "Oh, some guy, we don't know yet".

And all it cost were our civil liberties, national character, and trillions of dollars...

TFA quote:

"I met repeatedly with my National Security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located Bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside Pakistan," the president said.

"Finally, last week I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action and authorized an operation to get Osama Bin Laden and bring him to justice," he said.

Nice wording indeed... (I don't decry the assassination of bin Laden by a military/commando squad, just a bit worried this is called "bringing someone to justice")

The giant was not sleeping. What reality are you living in? Or do you like to cling to this fantasy because it helps you think that you are on the side of right and justice? It's pretty convenient to believe that because it avoids a lot of cognitive dissonance.

The reality is more like the giant was hard at work sticking its thumbs in everyone else's pie. An example would be the very fact that Bin Laden was armed and trained by the USA back in the 80s when Bin Laden was a good guy because he was fighting the russkies for us. That's just 1 pie. There are probably 50 others you can use as an example for that period or after.

Nope, the giant's been pretty busy at work being an imperialist bastard.

The only difference between "terror" and justice or liberation or whatever misleading labels the propaganda industry uses on death and killing is who is committing it. When we do it, it's "liberation" or "intervention" or whatever and when they do it, it's terror.

That's pretty much not true. Bin Laden, while he did use his own funds as well, was a Mujahadeen leader and it's pretty well established that the Mujahadeen were given vast sums of money and arms to fight the Russians (indirectly via Pakistan).

Google around to see that lots of people agree Bin Laden was a CIA asset at one point. That fact is politically embarrassing but plainly true.

Also, I stand by my definition that the weapon of the US government is terrorism. It's just not called that when they do it. They sometimes call it liberation or exporting democracy. (which is pretty ridiculous but what's more ridiculous is that the population buys it).

IIRC he was suffering from failing kidneys in the late 90s, so unless they had dialysis machines in the caves I smell something fishy my own self. Personally I want to see the body. if we killed him there is a body, yes? let's see it.

Personally I think it is more likely he has been dead since 03 (after that you'll notice the only vids you got was his picture and a voice) and we probably just now found the body. Since there is no way in hell the military is gonna go "hey guess what?" and admit the guy had been DOA all that time and we were having our collective chains yanked, you shoot the body full of holes and say "got him!".

So I want to see the body, it ought to be pretty easy to tell if the corpse is fresh or moldy.

In chief, specific freedoms regarding privacy. Most of that weight is distributed across the Patriot Act and airport security measures. While I haven't heard a lot of complaining about the Patriot Act in quite some time, the what the TSA has been up to in the last two years or so could possibly be regarded as unreasonable search and seizure. Most of this goes unnoticed in the daily lives of a large swathe of the American population, but it's there, to be sure.

Right to a fair trial (Guantanamo detainees).Right to privacy (wiretapping).Right to travel (indiscriminate no-fly listing).The right of congress, not the president, to declare war (Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists - congress' own damn fault for signing this one away, still illegal though).

More coverage at ABC News, at CNN, and at Al Jazeera. The reports say that Bin Laden was actually killed about a week ago by a bomb in Pakistan, and the time taken to confirm his identity via DNA testing helped delay the news. In downtown Austin, Texas, in the time since the story broke I've heard what sound like numerous celebratory gunshots.

That's from the summary. NONE of the three sources state that, and none of the sources I read have said anything like that. I'm not going to jump to conclusions and say he was killed by a bomb in Pakistan a week ago, when the President said he was killed in a ground operation. He was likely killed by American rifles, whether face-to-face or initially from a distance.

Look, for once could we let the partisan crap go? A bad guy is dead. That's cause for celebration. It's not an invitation for every partisan whackjob to whip out his pecker and start pissing all over everything.

We all know the drunk uncle who has to be invited to the wedding, but who can be counted upon to leave the reception cuffed in a squadcar. For today, could you try not to be him?

You overrate both the memory span of the American voter, and the disaster that $4, $5, and $6/gallon gasoline hath wrought. In fact, the fact that gasoline doesn't immediately now drop to $1.29/gallon will be the great disappointment of the majority of the electorate.

Bullshit. Bush diverted most of our military to a pointless fight in Iraq, and unsurprisingly we never caught Bin Laden. Obama set finding Bin Laden as our top goal in the region, and we found him in a little over two years.

Just think if we had done that from the start. Bin Laden still dead, without wasting a trillion dollars and thousands of lives in Iraq.

Bullshit. Bush diverted most of our military to a pointless fight in Iraq, and unsurprisingly we never caught Bin Laden. Obama set finding Bin Laden as our top goal in the region, and we found him in a little over two years.

Nonsense. Military/intel forces are not interchangeable. Except for the actual take-down, getting Bin Laden was a surveillance/analysis problem, not a mass force problem. Taking everything we had in Iraq and throwing it at the task would not have helped, except perhaps for things like UAVs which were not in short supply anyway. A large chunk of the man-hours spent in finding him were probably put in by intelligence people here in the US, going over the data and putting pieces together.

Remember, Bin Laden was found in Pakistan, and has probably been there for most of the decade. Pakistan has been very upset just with the pinprick drone strikes we've been doing. Are you seriously suggesting that Bush should have attempted to get Bin Laden by taking the forces used in Operation Iraqi Freedom -- large formations of tanks, infantry, artillery, presaged by massive airstrikes -- and instead directing them at a confirmed nuclear-armed Pakistan? Because when you blame the how long it took to capture Bin Laden on Bush invading Iraq, that's the alternative you're implying.

If you oppose the war in Iraq, fine, there are valid reasons for doing so, but saying that it delayed Bin Laden's capture is ridiculous.

Why would it? It's pretty much accepted that bin Laden was radicalized by the 2nd in command - who, therefore, was the real power behind the throne. What's more, by landing troops in Pakistan, the US risks a great many Pakistanis joining up with terrorist groups.

Further, by killing bin Laden rather than capturing him, the US has created a martyr. That's usually a very bad move. Further, the media's interpretation of President Obama's remarks was that he had ordered bin Laden's assassination. The US has been trying to assassinate a number of other leaders recently - bodily or by character. That could create some extremely unholy alliances, since leaders generally don't approve of being assassinated and Al Queda is likely to be looking for alternative bases.

Tomorrow, then, will be just like today only the US will have fewer people to blame.

Capturing bin Laden would have been the wisest move. By depriving him of martyrdom, the US would have avoided an excalation in the conflicts. Further, it would have likely resulted in a paniced upper echelon of Al Queda as they'd not know what he knew or what he'd say. And in not knowing, they'd likely act rashly. And that is what we needed.

What happened tonight was a PR stunt intended to bolster the ratings of the Democrats and undercut Republican credentials on security. It had nothing whatsoever to do with actual security at all.

Further, by killing bin Laden rather than capturing him, the US has created a martyr. That's usually a very bad move.

I could see it going either way. Bin Laden was a charismatic figure head of an ideology. Sometimes death creates a martyr, but more often in history it kills the movement. When it does create a martyr, it is because the movement is rising anyway, like when John Brown's death became a catalyst in the growing abolitionist movement. More often the cause dies quietly, like when Guy Fawkes failed to draw people to the cause of Catholicism.

In this case, it appears Middle Easterners have largely given up on the political ideas of Bin Laden, and instead have started turning towards democracy as a way out of their problems. It's hard to know public opinion for sure in that region, but there have been many uprisings of people demanding democracy.

You really think America is in any perceptible less danger than it was before (not that it was in much danger before)? I don't presume to know the reason they were, but the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were hardly waged to keep America safe.

I mean, a guy arrested at the scene of a mass shooting, covered in blood and holding an assault rifle, screaming about how the aliens in his head told him to murder all of mankind... still gets a trial.

Not if he's still shooting when the police, or anyone with a gun, arrive. Then he gets shot.

OBL and AQ were still planning other operations. Sometimes in the middle of action there is no time for trial. In a real war trials are madness, you cannot fight real bullets with lawyers not matter how many lawyers you have.

1) In war, the same rules don't apply. There are rules, but they are different. For the "world rules of war" you can see the Geneva Conventions, though that doesn't cover everything and indeed fighters like bin Laden that do not wear a uniform and attempt to disguise themselves as civilians aren't covered by many of the protections. For more specific US rules you can see the Rules of Engagement. Regardless, wartime rules are different than peacetime rules. You don't have to agree with that idea, but you can't very well claim it isn't how it works, it has been that way in every nation for basically all of history and is codified in national and international law.

2) To get your chance at a fair trial, you have to not shoot the people that come to get you. Apparently there was a firefight and it was one that bin Laden and his people lost. You shoot at troops, or at police, they'll shoot back. They take the Malcom Renoylds advice to heart: "Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill 'em right back!" This is true in the civilian/police world as well. If the police come to arrest you for a crime and you and your body guards open fire on them, they'll fire back. They'll then bring in more heavily armed police, and if you keep shooting, they'll eventually kill you. You want your fair trial you need to surrender.

You'll notice that Saddam Hussein did surrender to US forces when found and he was brought in alive. He was either unarmed or threw down his weapons and surrendered. Per the rules of war, he was then captured and not killed. He got his trial, which of course did not end well for him.

You can't honestly say that US troops should have just sat there, gotten shot, and not shot back can you? You really think that they could or should be given the order "Go in and capture everyone alive, no matter what. Doesn't matter how many of you die, no lethal force, just keep going in until they run out of bullets and you can take them alive." Hell no, if they got fired on, they had a right to fire back and the idea that you can shoot someone to knock the gun out of their hand is pure action movie BS. You shoot to kill.

Remember that this was not the US operating in the US, they were operating in a foreign country, one who's citizens are not precisely US fans. While it sounds like Pakistan signed off on the raid I'm betting it was a tacit agreement, a sort of "Well we can't actually support this but for some reason there will be no police and military in that area that night and our radar operators will act like they work for the FAA and be asleep on the job."

A long siege would require direct Pakistani involvement. At the least, they'd have to provide security to keep the populace away from the US forces, and they might well have to execute the operation themselves.

If he had been hiding out in the woods in Colorado, sure then I'd say this is the way to handle it. Send in the police and siege him till he gives up. Hell, treat him like a common criminal, don't give him the status of being someone who the military goes after. He's not a fighter he's a thug. However that wasn't the case. He was in Pakistan, a country with all kinds of problems when it comes to this. You do what you can do to get his ass, dead or alive.

Also at this point I'm not sure his intelligence is of all that much value. He had been a figurehead for a long time, not a field commander. That still means getting him is important, figureheads matter or we'd not have them, but it means that any information he might have is not as useful as it once was.

I'm not saying that taking him alive wouldn't have been better, but I'm realistic about the chances of that. I'm sure the orders were not "And he must be taken alive!" as that would be silly. More likely it was "And take him alive if it is reasonably practical."

In a perfect world, sure, I'm certain that the US gov't would have preferred to grab him alive, milk him dry for intel, and then have him found guilty in a trial and executed.

However:- his capture would simply have resulted in an uncountable number of abductions of US citizens, mostly innocents, in an effort to trade them for his release. How would YOU like to have been the American president faced with telling Mr and Mrs Smith that their little Johnny or Joanna was just BEHEADED on Al-Jazeera when you could have traded this single, nearly-irrelevant, stinky old man for them?- further, his capture would have opened up a whole new round of deep hand-wringing about how we 'dare' treat him. Could we dare make him uncomfortable, or would that be "inhumane"? Is forcing him to hear Backstreet Boyz for 24 hours a day cruel and/unusual?- his trial would quite likely have been a mockery of grandstanding and posturing - offering him a world stage he's been too afraid to step up to for the last 10 years.- finally, in reality, what are the odds that he really was going to EVER be captured? He was not a luxury-loving sybarite like Saddam Hussein, whose narcissism made it likely that - at the end - he wouldn't take himself out. Osama was a different creature, having fought in his 20s with the mujahedeen, and having walked AWAY from wealth and luxury in favor of hardship in pursuit of a 'cause'. Seriously, what is the real likelihood that he could have been so totally surprised and immobilized in less than the 0.5 seconds it would have taken him to put a bullet through the roof of his own mouth?

As I mentioned above, organizationally he's probably largely irrelevant; but symbols matter - and his extinction lends credibility to the near-magical capabilities of American intel-gathering amongst the Al-Qaeda faithful, as well as a useful air of implacability to the resolution of the US gov't, even across administrations.

So no, I doubt it was a "choice" by anyone, except OBL himself. Good riddance to him.

I think the audio tapes were more because he had a close call due to video, and the US was dumb enough to talk about it on TV. I can't find a link to it but there was a new segment where they were talking about all the things they could glean from these video messages. My bet is bin Laden (or his security guy) said "Oh shit! So that's how they've come so close! No more video then, audio only."